


firmly rooted in the present

by bobtheacorn



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Minor Violence, Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Slice of Life, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-04-06 01:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobtheacorn/pseuds/bobtheacorn
Summary: Maybe he should have listened more attentively to the Stable Master sons' advice about coats and temperaments and such. The horse that catches his eye right away is a mare with a yellow coat as glossy and bright as the sun shining over water.Link has the good sense, at least, to sneak up behind her.She has the good sense to kick him in the head./Link's adventures in the wilds of Hyrule. A drabble series based on game-play.





	1. thunder

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't played a Zelda game since Oracle of Seasons, when I was but a wee lass! Breath of the Wild is absolutely stunning in every way imaginable (I love an open world where I can climb every single rock and tree!!) and I'm still obsessed with it while I'm at work and can't play it, so here we are with another shitty drabble collection.
> 
> Lots and lots of dumbass energy here.

When the Stable Master at Twin Peaks tells Link that he can tame wild horses, Link turns right around, away from the first safe, warm place to sleep that he's found, and sprints across the wide plain littered with obsolete guardians and apple trees and small, roaming herds of Bokoblins and horses alike. Maybe he should have listened more attentively to the Stable Master sons' advice about coats and temperaments and such. The horse that catches his eye right away is a mare with a yellow hide as glossy and bright as the sun shining over water.

Link has the good sense, at least, to sneak up behind her.

She has the good sense to kick him in the head.

There's thunder in the ground.

No, he lost a little time there, just a moment. The herd is retreating and the earth rumbles steadily under their hoofbeats. Dust kicks up in their wake and settles. The wind sighs through the tall grass. It's the only sound after the storm, that gentle hush and sway. Link's head is pounding as he lays there and basks in the starlight, watching the thin points overhead turn slowly from one horizon to the next.

 


	2. Hylian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Link's defense, his sense of distance and direction has been warped by the long sleep.

It takes Link a while to process what he's seeing.

He stays where he is, crouched low in the wet grass with a Restless Cricket cupped securely between his hands, with bare feet and mud-splattered clothes that don't fit quite right - just beyond the reach of a flickering campfire. He's seen enough of those since his awakening to be aware of the smoke from a distance and be pragmatically cautious of what surrounds the light. Bokoblins are dumb as hell as a general rule. But they're up late into the night and usually sleep in the early mornings, and if he's not aware of them then they'll be aware of him and that'll be that.

But it's not a chattering, leaping, yelping band of Bokoblins rioting around the fire.

It's a man, a Hylian.

His silhouette makes that clear enough.

The man is standing with a tree branch in his hand, peering into the woods to the far left of where Link actually is. It's obvious he's heard something: Link slipping down the bank from the grassy hills and splashing around in that shallow pond, more focused on not losing the cricket in his clutches than his nearness to the pale smoke rising up through the forest canopy. In Link's defense, his sense of distance and direction has been warped by the long sleep.

It's still difficult to get his bearing sometimes. And after weeks of meeting only monsters and animals in the ruins and the wild, it's jarring to see a person. 

The spirit of that old dude  _ had _ said there was a village somewhere to the north. It follows naturally, then, that there would be people.

Link stands, casting himself straight up into the light.

The man startles backward with a soft noise at the sight of him. He stumbles over a rock jutting from the ring of them banking the fire, and falls heavily on his rear. The stick is useless in his hand. The fire beside him pops as the logs of its innards settle and sends up sparks.

Hastily tucking the Restless Cricket into his bag to free up his hands, Link motions a greeting and an apology to the man for sneaking up on him.

The man's relief is a tangible thing.

"Oh," he sighs, "Whew! You're a traveler?"

Link nods.

Close enough.

It turns out Link has stumbled upon a merchant named Cambo. He offers to sell Link things that Link can probably easily obtain on his own, and buy all the hard won prizes that Link has found. Link declines both - he's not interested in carrying around things he can't eat or actively use at the moment - but he is interested in the road. Now that he thinks about it, that old dude mentioned a road, too, and that Link should follow it.

And Link did cross what looked like a road by that great big bridge to the east, but he'd been looking at the hills and the bright orange tower far beyond, and it had gotten swept clean out of his mind.

He opens the map on his Sheikah Slate, and remembers that this area is blank.

Only the Plateau Tower has been activated.

In angling instinctively for that other tower, though, he was headed in the right direction - north, toward that pinging ambiguous light where he might find Impa. Link clips the Sheikah Slate to his belt again, frowning. Odd that he can consistently remember the exact combination of creature parts to make an elixir to get his breath back or to ward off the cold for a time, but he can't remember where the road is.

He declines Cambo's offer to stay by the fire for the night and trots off into the darkness.

It's not safe to sleep when monsters are prowling.

The road is less than two yards away, snaking neatly between the flat beach of the river and the small cluster of woods. Link can clearly see the tower from here, both closer and farther than he guessed, and the pass through the split mountains looming just behind. He can make it there before dawn.

 


	3. Moblin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The spiraling horn on the Moblin's forehead, the length of Link's body, is actually the least threatening thing about it.

The first time Link sees a Moblin, he knows right away that he doesn't want to mess with it.

Nevermind that it is snoring indolently in the grass.

The club that rests beside it is twice Link's size, and the monster, when it stands, will be five times larger in order to wield it. Those awkward, stocky legs will make it slow, but it has a long spine, and longer arms, and sharp long-fingered hands that end in claws that could snatch him up faster than Link could get away. It has a long snout that is open wide, tongue lolling and teeth shining yellow in the bright early dawn. The spiraling horn on the Moblin's forehead, the length of Link's body, is actually the least threatening thing about it.

So, yeah.

He definitely wants to avoid this thing.

But Link thinks of that poor fool pacing bravely back and forth along the bridge to keep it safe, and any witless travelers whose wanderings might bring them along this path through the abandoned town, and he sighs. He climbs the rest of the way over the crumbling wall, drops into a crouch, and draws a rusty sword.

 


	4. hasty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link has discovered that if he walks quickly and with enough purpose that he can avoid most confrontations on the road.

Link has discovered that if he walks quickly and with enough purpose that he can avoid most confrontations on the road. That damn blood moon keeps respawning the monsters, and it gets tedious having to slay them over and over and over again when he's in a hurry to get somewhere. (He forgets he can fast-travel between the few towers he has up and the temples where he's completed a trial. It's something of a disorienting experience, anyway, and he prefers to get around on his own two feet when he can.)

He has more guts and horns and bone in his pack than he knows what to do with, and more Hasty Elixirs than he can carry. Hot-Footed Frogs are the easiest things in the world to catch because they cluster together in every pond of Zora's Domain.

Those definitely come in handy when he's outrunning the Lizalfos.

There is a menacing hiss behind him, a sharp, darting movement at the edge of Link's vision.  _ Just keep moving. Don't look at it. _ Link motions with his hands out of habit as he picks up his pace, putting on a short burst of speed to get that final bit of distance between himself and the monster. If he runs outright, he'll lose his breath. If whatever is hot on his heels catches him up when he's bent and gasping for air, he's finished.

He doesn't know if the long sleep is the reason he can't run very fast for any length of time or if he just has weak lungs. (Or if it's a layover from a battle and a wound that only his body remembers.) Either way, a quick, determined stride works best.

It keeps him in tact - most of the time.

 


	5. grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link spins toward the roar, the towering shadow. He sees the halberd swinging down, the way the wide blade catches the sunlight barely pouring over the lip of the ridge as it sinks in the west; the way it winks, throwing warmth across his face. The way it hungrily cleaves the air to reach him.

The blow is devastating.

The Moblin roars, unattended, victorious.

Link's spear shatters on the last Bokoblin he dispatches - an array of blue energy, a lightness in his hands - a creature writhing in dark skin that evaporates into a darker cloud of smoke and violet sparks. He spins toward the roar, the towering shadow. He sees the halberd swinging down, the way the wide blade catches the sunlight barely pouring over the lip of the ridge as it sinks in the west; the way it winks, throwing warmth across Link's face. The way it hungrily cleaves the air to reach him.

The bite of steel into his skin.

The impact of his back hitting the ground that scatters cognitive thought into rolling sensations, observations that flicker and vanish: the cool, hard earth and the press of grass through his clothes. The scent of the wind straight from the ocean, the tang of seaspray that brings to mind the sound of waves, and bird cries, and the skittering of crabs. A bright blue flower yards away that seems to weep in the fading light.

The gasp for breath that is choked with sudden, cloying heat. The liquid filling up his weak lungs.

There is a drop.

A single drop of water upsetting a still pond, the ripples gathering strength as they barrel outward.

That's what it feels like as Mipha's Grace floods through him, bringing him back from the brink. It builds the breath back into his lungs. It restarts his heart. It soothes every ache in his broken body and trembles out through his fingertips, a coolness the alleviates the heat in his chest and throat and makes him whole.

There is a drop, the building strength, and the calm.

It all happens inside of a moment.

Link is rolling with the motion of his fall and gathering himself up on shaking legs, and when he swings his sword he parries the second, bewildered sweep of the Moblin's deadly blade. That gives him the opening that he needs, and Link takes it. It's only after all is quiet that he truly catches his breath and remembers the voice in his ear, a whispered memory.

The adrenaline fades.

His skin is still buzzing, but all he feels is calm.

He motions _Thank you_ into the empty air and knows he is not alone.

 


	6. crickets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link can absolutely sense when someone is going to give him a reward for doing a task.

Link likes to think he is a pretty swift judge of character. He's oblivious at times, sure. But he can tell when someone is decent enough and when they're not. Manny is… kind of a creep. It's his tone when he speaks and the words he chooses, and the superior air he tries to cast. But Link can absolutely sense when someone is going to give him a reward for doing a task, and he's curious to see what the creep will offer.

So he goes to the inn to talk to the girl.

She's polite (she signs as well as speaks) right up until Link asks her what sort of things she likes. Maybe because he is mute, the girl assumes that his hearing is also impaired, because she mutters under her breath, wondering why he's asking. Her answer is obviously not the truth. Link privately relishes in this, his reservations about the situation vanishing at once.

The creep will give the girl 100 Restless Crickets, and the girl will hate it, and Link won't have to worry about having set the girl up with a creep.

 


	7. tenacious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone said the Lynel was fierce and that he should collect what Electric Arrows that he could and book it the hell out of there before the beast could engage with him, but Link is the tenacious sort, and he's never backed down from a challenge.

Well, there's no reason  _ not _ to jump.

Everyone said the Lynel was fierce and that he should collect what Electric Arrows that he could and book it the hell out of there before the beast could engage with him, but Link is the tenacious sort, and he's never backed down from a challenge. Memories or not, destiny or no, very little is going to change that. Besides, it is far less stressful to fight the Lynel head-on and be done with it than it is to sneak and snatch and run, and hope that he gets enough arrows in the end.

Having defeated the Lynel, and exhausted his supply of fortifying foods, and collected every Electric Arrow that he could conceivably reach, Link stands on the precipice of Shatterback Point. He gazes down at the reservoir far below, and the Divine Beast lying in wait, and thinks that there is no reason to trek the long way back down the mountain in order to meet up with Sidon.

A couple of things hold him back, at first.

Is it rude to drop onto the back of a Divine Beast when it's out of its mind with Calamity's influence?

Will he drown if he misjudges the distance, or runs out of strength to guide the glider, and lands in the water too far from the shore?

These things are inconsequential.

The rain still hasn't stopped. It is coming down in buckets, and people's lives are in ever-growing danger.

So Link takes the running leap, and he soars.

 


	8. gratitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone else is focused on the past.
> 
> Sidon is focused on the now.

Link feels a rush of gratitude toward the Zoran Prince the moment Sidon speaks up for him in the throne room, urging his father to return to the task at hand rather than continuing to bring up his sister. Link hadn't realized his confusion (and the guilt that often accompanies it) was so apparent.

Maybe it's just that it's worse here, where the adults seem to remember him from their childhoods, and the elderly sneer at him for a grievance he has no recollection of and that he feels didn't rightly earn. It's as if they believe he  _ chose _ this.

To carry the burden of saving all of Hyrule, alone.

It makes Zora's Domain somehow the least hospitable place he could imagine. Everyone is so intent on him remembering things that he can't and feeling things that he doesn't, and it's overwhelming to a point. He is empathetic toward their plight, certainly, and he is more than happy to help in any way that he is able - but the only full memory that he has is not a pleasant one, and none of the anxious, eager faces of the youthful Zorans stand out to him.

And Link's guilt doubles up in his chest, tightening into a stone, each time he has to shake his head and sign the words  _ I'm sorry. I don't remember that. I have no idea who you are. _

That's what endears him so to the Zoran Prince.

Everyone else is focused on the past.

Sidon is focused on the now.

He wants to save his people (and even those he doesn't know, people who live downstream in the plains and marshes) from the immediate threat of flood should the reservoir not hold. He wants to calm Ruta's throes of anger, and bring a sense of peace to his kingdom. He is more concerned with what Link can do to help him achieve these goals than he is with what Link remembers, or the tone of his forgotten friendships, or the ties they might have had.

Sidon is firmly rooted in the present, and that's where Link wants to be.

It's the only thing that he can bear.

 


	9. crickets, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once he starts actively looking for a thing, it never turns up.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished.

(Though Link wouldn't necessarily call this a good deed.)

He doesn't get anything from Manny until he catches at least ten Restless Crickets for the creep himself. Bogus. But the idea of that mysterious reward is tantalizing enough that Link acquiesces, and so he sets out for the fields in search of crickets. The agonizing part is that he  _ had _ ten crickets before he made his elixirs this morning and now he has about… He counts them.

Two.

And once he starts actively looking for a thing, it never turns up. If he didn't need crickets they would be leaping up on his arms every five steps. Now, he goes to the places where he knows crickets like to hop about, and he still can't find them. When he finds them, he startles them and they flutter away, vanishing into the grass before he can dart after them.

After spending the day running up and down the hills to the toll of four entire Restless Crickets, the task becomes irritating. Link would rather fight a Lynel.

He slashes at the grass in sheer frustration.

His sword cuts cleanly through it.

Two crickets stand there looking at him, too shocked to even leap away. Link mirrors them. The moment of clarity before he dives to the ground and snatches them both makes him feel incredibly foolish. Of course it is easier to find crickets if he just cuts the grass and catches them unawares. He doesn't even have to sneak. He does it again, slicing a wider circle around himself as he spins with the bright blade.

He carries the surplus of Restless Crickets back into the village stables where Manny is waiting listlessly, and he gets a silver rupee for his trouble.

 


	10. Memory #11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where the picture was taken.
> 
> He activates the Sheikah Slate to be sure. He looks back and forth between the view and the picture, lowering the Slate, and the memory knocks into him like a physical thing as his eyes wander past the gate itself to the snow-clouded mountain beyond.

The traveling painter in Kakariko Village says he has seen that gateway from the photograph at the far eastern end of Lanayru Road, and Link sets out for it as soon as he speaks with Impa. He can't decide if he's motivated by simple curiosity - the secret message Princess Zelda has urged the old shaman woman to share with him only after he begins to remember who he is - or if it's more deeply personal than that. Link has no idea who he is, only what others have told him. And those century-old tales are difficult to reconcile with his reckless nature; his bruised knuckles and scraped knees, his torn, dirty clothes, and his terrible aim with any bow and arrow.

He does feel more at ease when he has a sword on his back, and wielding it is the most natural thing in the world for him. Even if it feels like something is missing. Maybe that has little to do with Link, and more to do with the sword, which is any kind he can pick up and swing at a moment's notice.

It's just an inkling that he has.

Any sword or weapon will do, but none of them feel…  _ right. _

He has that same feeling now as he rides through the promenade: a vague sense of recognition tickling the back of his mind and nothing that jumps out quite in the way that he thought it would.

His horse is a patient, gentle thing, at least. She waits while he investigates any ledge or concave along the dilapidated highway. She doesn't startle or bolt when he dismounts and runs ahead to fight off the Lizard Folk who swarm the place. She waits where he leaves her and she comes when she's called, and Link is happy to give her as many apples as she likes when she nuzzles his face with her soft pink nose. Link rubs the length of her snout and gives her a firm pat before jumping back up into the saddle.

It takes half a day to reach the Eastern Gate.

Dusk is falling. The horizon is a glowing line that throws its vibrant, saturated light against the face of the walls and cliffs and the stone pillars. It changes the color of the moss and grass to electric blue, the stone itself glowing orange. It warms Link's bare arms and throws his shadow long across the road as he moves about self-consciously in slow little circles, casting his gaze wide, afraid to move too quickly and risk losing the tenuous grip he has on the sense of familiarity that is budding in the air.

He leaves Nea grazing in the grass where it's safe and moves up the slope on foot, toward the gate, and hesitates.

This is where the picture was taken.

He activates the Sheikah Slate to be sure. He looks back and forth between the view and the picture, lowering the Slate, and the memory knocks into him like a physical thing as his eyes wander past the gate itself to the snow-clouded mountain beyond.

_ "Well? Don't keep us in suspense!" _

Link's heart kicks up in rhythm, quick as a bird, his body flushing with the instantaneous warmth of adrenaline. He stumbles further up the slope to stand between the pillars where it feels and looks the most familiar, to recall that eager, booming voice. The princess' soft reply, disheartened. A woman's encouraging words.

_ "Feeling sorry for yourself won't help." _

The beginning of softly spoken advice. (He wonders what it was that the Zoran was going to say; what was it that she thinks about when she is healing, and why does he feel a quiet thrill?) And without warning, a rumbling from deep within the earth, a storm tearing and coiling and building in the distance, sparking red, bleeding malice. A roar that shook the very fiber of his being. Link remembers a darkness falling, then…

Or maybe that's just the sun sinking now, the last line of light flaring bright, and taking the memory with it.

The darkness didn't fall 100 years ago.

It rose.

It is not a happy first memory, and Link's heart thuds in his chest the more it sits on his mind.

  
  



	11. Memory #16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something makes him look up. The sense that he has been here, or dreamed here, or both, slows his footsteps until he is standing in the center of the road, in the lowest point of the hollow, looking up the path to where it leads out.
> 
> The field is beyond, the grass shivering in the rain.
> 
> His bow is taut in his hands, arrow notched and ready to fly - but his mind is a hundred years away.

It's raining when he comes across his third memory, which works out, because it is raining in the memory, too. Maybe that's what triggers it. Thick droplets hitting the canopy, the smell of wet earth and the splash of mud, the grey hazy air drifting up from the forest floor and ghosting along the narrow track of a road that winds between the trees and hills, half-forgotten.

Link stumbles upon it by complete accident.

He cuts through the woods below the ruined swamp, bow drawn, chasing a doe. He's not a quick shot (or an accurate one…), but when he tries to get in close she bolts, white tail flashing, and Link darts after her automatically. Something makes him look up. The sense that he has been here, or dreamed here, or both, slows his footsteps until he is standing in the center of the road, in the lowest point of the hollow, looking up the path to where it leads out.

The field is beyond, the grass shivering in the rain.

His bow is taut in his hands, arrow notched and ready to fly - but his mind is a hundred years away.

Slowly, Link relaxes the bowstring.

He puts the weapon away and unclips the Slate from his belt, and thumbs open the album. He's right. The rain is a quiet thing at the edge of his awareness as he looks from the photo to the view ahead.

Then it is a tide sweeping over and dragging him down, a lurch of sensation and emotion.

He remembers _running_ through here, but he doesn't remember _why._ It's only the rabbiting of his pulse that's clear, that his body mirrors now. It's the sting of his lungs and the icy air. It's the storm lashing the trees, and the lightning flashing across the drawn blade of his sword. It's the swift and confident movement of his feet.

The urge to _get there._

_Just get there._

_Quickly._

He remembers, viscerally - a tug in his chest, in his sinew and bone, way down in the light and star-matter that makes him up - the fear as Zelda falls and her hand is wrenched from his.

He remembers that she cries, and blames herself, and that he doesn't know what to say. He remembers that the weight of her despair and her guilt, and maybe the weight of his own, brings him to his knees beside her in the mud. That _she_ reaches out to _him,_ and he can't comfort her.

Whatever he's feeling, it's a quiet thing.

But it's so big it rends the air like thunder.

 


	12. a lack of sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's really no accounting for a lack of sense among the Hylians.

Link is horrified to learn that people are sneaking into the abandoned Castle. He doesn't know if it's daring or ignorance that goads them on, or if the allure of unaccounted riches is simply that overpowering. It's probably a combination of all three, coupled with indifference. On the hostile plains of Central Hyrule, no one seems to think twice about an adventurer who doesn't return from a perilous quest.

Link has saved the same group of "treasure hunters" at least three times already, and the truffle-hunting sisters more than a dozen.

...And Link himself is out here, now that he thinks about it, essentially beating the darkness back with a stick that is threatening to break with every blow. Jumping into volcanoes. Running headlong up against beasts ten times his size. Letting the Guardians criss-crossing the plains chase him into clutches so they can blast each other and make his task that much easier.

So there's really no accounting for a lack of sense among the Hylians.

It's a wonder they've survived for so long.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nintendo just announced a Botw sequel and I'mmmmmmmm livin', y'all! *prayer hands* THAT'S psychic magnetism, baby


	13. revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time, hearing something lights recognition all down Link's spine.

The second Blight goes down much faster than the first.

Maybe Link has finally gotten into his rhythm, or maybe this time he had a more powerful weapon on hand and that moves things along. Either way, when he sees the damage that battle has done to the Ancient Axe he picked up, he is not without regret. He had been hoping it would be an effective weapon against the Guardians flocking around the Castle, but he forgot all about that idea in the face of the Fire Blight contaminating the Divine Beast Rudania and keeping her Champion's soul captive.

It dawns on Link that the other two Champions are trapped within their Beasts, as well.

This revelation seems to come a bit late.

He feels like he probably should have known that.  But he didn't exactly have much to establish a pattern with, and he knows more about himself now than he did when he freed Mipha and Ruta. Things have begun to really sink in. After his disheartening memory of the Ceremony and the ordeal he went through to even get it, Daruk's words after Rudania is freed are a balm that revitalizes Link's spirit and bolsters his determination. It restores the confidence he had in this task when he had first begun, which had waned the further along he has come.

He only has a few small pieces of the puzzle. He has to keep that in mind.

So he goes back to Goron City victorious and hopeful, with a newly emboldened Yudoro in tow. Boss' back has conveniently stopped hurting now that the work is done. He seems to recognize Link, or else he just thinks that Link ought to know: the sword the Hylian Champion wielded one hundred years - ten thousand years - eons and eons ago - the Sword that Seals the Darkness, which will chose no other - is said to be sleeping in a forest.

For the first time, hearing something lights recognition all down Link's spine.

That's the thing he's been missing.

That's the thing that will make him feel whole, or right, or the opposite of whatever nameless thing he has been feeling since he woke up. Someone at the Stable mentioned the Great Forest when he was there a few days ago, and he had climbed the hill to light the tower for that area that very afternoon before he decided to travel to Death Mountain instead, and that is another piece of the puzzle sliding firmly into place.

His Sword is in the forest.

 


	14. cobblestone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link doesn't mind giving and receiving compliments when they're due, but he would much rather be in the woods, uprooting turnips and picking mushrooms, than appealing to a person's interest.

When the woman at the Rollin' Inn assumes Link is propositioning her when he approaches her to ask where she's from out of innocent curiosity, it takes him a moment longer than it should to understand her meaning. He gestures frantically, embarrassed by the miscommunication, his face beat red. The woman seems disappointed rather than offended. Link excuses himself from the conversation about elixirs and gemstones as politely as he can after that, rushing back out into the stifling heat of the night.

He gets those sort of comments more often than he likes. The man at the stable who said he had beautiful eyes. The woman in Kakariko Village who made some alarming innuendo about a bow that Link, once again, took a long time to process. The man at the top of that small mountain near Hateno, near the little broken heart-shaped pond, who had come up there looking for his soulmate and kept eyeing Link expectantly when he just happened upon the place.

Link doesn't mind giving and receiving compliments when they're due, but he would much rather be in the woods, uprooting turnips and picking mushrooms, than appealing to a person's interest.

He likes people, but not quite like _that._

Maybe Hylians are just forward by nature - the way they are resilient, like weeds growing stubborn and steadfastly up through the cobblestone, overtaking everything with time - and Link is odd because he has been sleeping for the past century, healing and forgetting. Or maybe he has always been like this, indifferent to the physical appeal of others, determined and focused on the task at hand, whatever it is, and he has just really never noticed.

Either way, he's fine with that.

 

 


	15. midday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caution is woven into every muscle.

It's disconcerting to wake up in the middle of the day, in the middle of the road, and with no solid recollection of how he got there. Link has had plenty of these moments since his awakening. He can't remember anything before sitting up in the temple, in an inch-deep pool of healing water, but as he jogs up one path or another after one of his midday narcoleptic spells his senses are all alert for something that his body remembers but which has been wiped clean from his mind.

He has that feeling a lot.

Caution is woven into every muscle.

The slightest noise makes him tense, ready to spring to safety or assault. It usually doesn't take him long to discover why: there is a troop of Bokoblins on the road ahead, or a lone Moblin, or a Guardian scuttling and roaming. That eerie feeling pressing on him makes him aware of the danger before he even knows that it's there, and makes it easier to either defeat the monsters, or skirt around them when he's in a hurry.

He wouldn't think too much of it if it weren't happening in the middle of the day, and always with some danger lurking just around the corner.

When Link sleeps (and he rarely does so), he usually climbs a tree for safety when he can't make a fire and there isn't a Stable nearby. He doesn't sleep out in the open. That's just asking for trouble.

He has fresh scars that he doesn't remember earning.

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link doesn't remember his home, from before.

He buys a house.

In Hateno.

That's a thing that Link does.

(That's a thing that he puts quite a lot of time and effort into, actually, despite much more pressing issues that are right at hand.)

He isn't sure what the appeal of it is at first. It's just an old house that some guys are going to tear down, that has vines crawling up the brickwork and cobwebs thriving is the rafters; creaky stairs and no front door, so all the elements can just rush in and help themselves to weathering the space. Still. …Link hates to see it go.

So when Bolson offers to sell it to him for three thousand rupees and some bundles of wood, Link is eager to get it done.

The wood is easiest. He has to find an axe first, because two trees in, his own axe breaks, and since he forgets things as quickly as they pass out of sight, searching one out is a frustrating quest all by itself. Earning the money is harder, because just when he needs a fellow traveler to barter monster parts and fruit with, there isn't a soul around. Link has about sixty rupees to his name.

In the end, he has three thousand... and five!

Which is just enough.

The house is his, and Bolson, with his pink pants and patterned vest, is starting to grow on him. The house is a cozy, quiet place sort of off by itself. Once all the renovations are done, Link sits on the edge of the bed in the loft, bouncing the firm mattress lightly, smiling and giddy without quite understanding why.

He looks around at all the homey things that Bolson was kind enough to furnish the place with. There are photographs of random scenery in frames, and books that he can't read. There is a place to hang weapons and coats, both, and a table with enough kitchenware for two. There are a few vases of flowers, which fill the house with lively scents under the new lanterns and light the space in their own way.

Link doesn't remember his home, from before.

He doesn't even know if he had one.

 


End file.
